


When the Sun is Still Low

by holyfant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Facial Shaving, set in Karachi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:52:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out he never stops talking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Sun is Still Low

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



> Written for tielan in the Rare Pair Exchange 2013. I hope you like it, tielan! Thanks and love to hechicera and radialarch for their corrections and suggestions.

Afterwards, Irene tugs loose the heavy cloth of her headscarf and feels the balm of the Karachi night against her skin.

 

She tries to move closer to Sherlock, putting out a hand to do the same for him – wanting to see more of him than just his eyes – but he moves away. _Too bold_ , she thinks, watches as he does it himself and lets the scarf flutter to the concrete. His cheeks are stubbled, which surprises her and makes her smile a little.

 

Dawn isn't far off. On the horizon, the light is stretching and yawning.

 

Sherlock looks at his hand and makes a fist with his bloodied fingers, expression full of distaste. He only had to wound one of them; the rest fled, quick and loud with surprise, helping their hurt comrade along.

 

“He's not going to die,” Sherlock says, as though she cares about that. (Maybe he does. Who knows with him.)

 

He looks down at her, holding her gaze for a second, and drops the sword with what looks like disgust.

 

*

 

He drives the jeep back to the outskirts of the city, both hands tense on the wheel. Traffic is low, the dust tracks that slowly turn into road even. He hasn't got any sunglasses and has to squint when the sun drips up over the horizon, turning the sky liquid, lengthening the shadows of the first civilian buildings they pass.

 

For a moment, she'd been afraid he'd leave her there. To make a point – that'd be like him, wouldn't it? Except then she'd really have nowhere to go. She doesn't like it: feeling like he's given her something he can easily take away again. That's the game _she_ plays. (Of course, he has played it too – and well, she must admit.)

 

She wants to touch him, but he looks at nothing except the road in front of them and the cracked display of the GPS, and he hasn't said a word to her since she got in next to him. Because it's what she does, she does reach out for his elbow, drawing her fingers over the spot to where he's rolled up his shirt cuffs and where the lean muscle of his arm bulges a little under the strain. He feels powerful under her fingers. He ignores the touch.

 

The silence between them grows and settles like dust.

 

“You'll have to get out of here as quickly as possible,” he finally says, as the city changes quickly around them, growing upwards, gaining confidence.

 

She's startled out of the beginning stages of a doze by his voice. “They're just a rebel faction, as disorganised as they are opportunistic,” she says, frowning. “They're not going to track me down. It was just a random hit.”

 

He glances at her. His profile when he looks back at the road is clearly cut in the intensifying morning light. Sharp cheekbones, weak chin, and the strangely sensual, lush curve of his lips.

 

“Oh, honestly,” she says. “You don't really think... how could...”

 

“I'm not convinced it was random,” is all he says, and focuses again on the road that swells in front of them, traffic thickening like mud.

 

*

 

He stops at the hotel she was staying at; she doesn't ask how he knows.

 

“So,” Irene says.

 

He looks at her. He's still got his hands on the steering wheel; the tendons on his forearms stand out.

 

“So nothing,” he says, a touch too defensive, and she allows herself a smile.

 

“Thank you,” she says, looking straight at him. His mouth tightens a little.

 

“Well,” he says, too flippant to be genuine, “you did _beg_ for help.”

 

“Yes, I suppose I did,” she says. “And you _came_.”

 

It's far too crude, but it still works; something changes in his posture, and he tilts his head a little, studying her. She endures it for a long moment, the razor-sharp focus of his eyes, but then gathers herself and reaches for the car door handle.

 

“Think it over,” she says through the open window, before walking away barefoot over the warming asphalt, shoes dangling from her fingertips.

 

*

 

He comes to the hotel just before nightfall, long after she would be able to pretend that she was still there because she was still packing.

 

“You stayed,” he says, disapproving, when she opens the door. “How unsurprisingly foolish.”

 

She smiles a little because she had dared to imagine him being shy, or fumbling – she had indulged in thinking that he'd be _different_ , going after something that he doesn't know. She's in her dressing gown, hair undone, and feels strong enough as his eyes sweep over her.

 

“Come in,” she says, and then: “You need a shave.”

 

*

 

She hadn't expected him to let her, because he must know that the mere idea of it arouses her, makes her body heat up in anticipation – and he's still at the stage where he's trying to deny her everything, just so he won't have to admit what it is that _he_ wants.

 

The razor is a vintage piece with an engraved ivory handle: a present from Kate, ever tasteful, ever discreet, above all desiring to share in Irene's intimacies. When she hands it to Sherlock, he gives it back to her.

 

“I've never used one like that before,” he says, which she thinks might be a lie.

 

He sits down for it, hands relaxed on his thighs, so that now – if she wanted to – she could rest her chin on the top of his head, feel the speed of that brain whirring away under the bone. She does want to, but she doesn't. Restraint, she knows, is one of the most beautiful things about desire. He angles his head into her hands wonderfully as she lathers him up, responding to the merest pressure of her fingers. The blade dips over the jut of his jaw and down the length of his neck; she watches the smooth glide of it in the mirror, the slight redness of the skin it leaves behind.

 

“You must really trust me,” she says, entirely joking.

 

“Not at all,” he says, voice low and loose. “But you're not _quite_ this literal when going for the jugular.”

 

She smiles at him in the mirror and though he doesn't allow her eye contact, she swears she sees the corners of his mouth move in response.

 

When she's almost finished, he says: “You don't like facial hair.”

 

“Not generally, no.”

 

“Generally, you don't like men.”

 

She laughs. “My dear, you'd do well to see a bit more nuance in the world. It's your only weakness, I think.”

 

“Nuance,” he repeats. “Says the woman who tries to cover up her intellect by shedding her clothes.”

 

“Physicality can be smart,” she says, drawing back to admire her work, touching a finger to the smooth, wet surface of his cheek, and smiles when he rolls his eyes. “You'll see,” she adds, the first allusion to what they both know but haven't said, and cherishes the curl of warm want in her belly when he looks up and his eyes fasten onto hers, bright and waiting.

 

“I don't generally like women,” he says evenly, not letting go of her gaze.

 

“Good,” she says. “It's safer that way.”

 

*

 

After the shave he spends a while pacing the room, silent, while she watches him from the bed. He's thinking and she can tell she shouldn't interfere. She can feel him descending back into unwillingness, and she can feel him being annoyed with himself for having allowed himself the intimacy of that non-descript bathroom that they filled together.

 

It's all right. She can wait. She lies back in the sheets, closes her eyes and gives herself a moment to miss the smell of her own bed, of the fresh cleanness of the washing powder, of the deepest notes of Kate's perfume after a long day.

 

*

 

He shakes her awake, not at all gentle.

 

“I was talking to you,” he says reproachfully.

 

“I'm sure I was listening,” she says, blinking as the details of her dream turn into water and seep away with the intrusion of reality. She feels like she could sleep more: sleep for hours, simmering beneath the surface of consciousness, never dipping deeply into the darkness but often coming up to draw a breath and see if he was still there.

 

He's watching her. “You're exhausted,” he says.

 

“Aren't you?” She pushes her body up on her elbows.

 

“I don't need much sleep.”

 

“That explains a lot.” She smiles at his dissatisfied face. “You should try it. Sleep is excellent for the imagination.”

 

“On the contrary,” he says. “Sleep is for people whose real lives are too boring to stand being awake.”

 

“I'm starting to see why you don't understand me.”

 

His eyes narrow and he leans in, hovering over her. “I do understand you.”

 

Instead of responding, she reaches up and wraps her hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down in several steps, letting his resistance bleed away at each stage of increased closeness.

 

He doesn't kiss her back for several moments, until he does.

 

*

 

It turns out he never stops talking.

 

“Careful,” he says when she undoes his cuffs.

 

“Obvious,” he says when she tries gently rubbing a nipple, but she doesn't miss the shiver of response.

 

“Transparent,” he says, a touch more breathily, when she traces the shape of his abdomen, the muscles tightening under her fingers.

 

“Dull,” he sighs, when she leans in and touches her lips to the skin just over his collarbone, where she can feel the speed of his blood pumping.

 

“What makes you think sex doesn't have to do with intelligence?” she finally asks him, sitting back on his thighs, quirking an eyebrow.

 

He huffs a haughty laugh and looks up from where he was watching her fingers inch their way down his stomach. “Please. There's no _finesse_ to it, no skill,” he says. “It's just playing into base instincts.” Despite the obvious interest of his cock, his expression is deeply condescending.

 

“Darling,” she says, “you genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.”

 

He gives her a look of mixed irritation and derision – he's still grappling for control. “And I suppose you can _teach_ me.”

 

She's secure enough in her ability not to waver under the sharp superiority of his stare. He has looked at her that way before, and it was enough then to make her topple – but not now, with him petulant but willing, fingers tightening around the sheets. This is where _she_ wins; this is her arena, and he entered it with full knowledge of that. He wouldn't be here if he didn't _want_ her to win. “I can, if you want me to,” she says, and watches as that makes his brows draw together in annoyance.

 

“ _You_ want you to,” he says.

 

The fact that she does – that she'd love to show him how _she_ thinks, how it can feel to think about pleasure until it becomes a reality – doesn't change the fact that she has the advantage here, so she simply waits, hand splayed on his hip, feeling how he responds to its presence there.

 

It takes a while. “Oh, _please_ ,” he finally says sharply. “You're the one who drew hearts all over the most important information you ever had your hands on like a lovesick schoolgirl, and handed it to me on a silver platter.”

 

“I never could resist a good pun,” she deadpans, and very lightly brushes the palm of her hand over the stiffening line of his cock in his trousers. He sucks in a breath and then frowns at himself. She leaves her hand on him. He's warm through the fabric.

 

“You call that a good pun?” he asks.

 

“I rather enjoyed it.”

 

“No, you didn't,” he snaps, the final attempt to reassert a hierarchy between them, to come out on top – but the reality of it is, he's beneath her, his body tense and curious between her thighs.

 

She smiles at him. “You should be proud of yourself,” she finally says, and carefully undoes the button on his trousers.

 

“I am,” he says.

 

“I don't mean because you _won_.”

 

He frowns, and then loses the expression when she opens his zip, slowly dragging her palm down over his erection.

 

“I mean because you realised that it was only half a victory,” she finishes, and before he can reply, leans down and kisses him full on the mouth, licking his lips open. She feels his hands stop hesitating and finally land on her hips, grinding her down against him.

 

He never comes back to it, to that particular moment of conversation, and that's how she knows he accepts it from her.

 

*

 

“Oh, God,” he says at one point, sweat gathering in the hollow of his throat, as she takes one of his hands and brings it to where her skin is kissing his, where they're slipping together, where he disappears inside her.

 

“Get it now?” she breathes, and leans forward, changing the angle and trapping his hand there, rubbing against her clit as she works herself against him. He gasps when she tightens her inner muscles around him, free hand coming up to tangle itself into her hair.

 

“Yes,” he says, “ _yes_ ,” and the next sound he makes is no longer a word, but a smear of sound.

 

*

 

In the morning, she gives him the pair of sunglasses she'd got from a posh Abu Dhabian on her flight to Karachi.

 

“You should be careful on the road,” she tells him, “especially when the sun is still low.” She smiles when he doesn't mock her for it, instead putting them on before he has to, in the cool protection of the hotel room. He looks good in them: they complement the symmetry of his alien features, and make the beginnings of a tan on his face look more natural.

 

Giving in to the impulse, she reaches up and touches his cheek.

 

“Thank you,” she says, and it's different this time.

 

“Well, you did beg,” he says, and that, too, is different.

 

“Yes,” she says, and smiles. “I suppose I did.”


End file.
